More on New Jersey

The rest of what we have written about New Jersey. Every figure is quoted from New Jersey’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.

Changing your name back in New Jersey

Whether you can get your former name back in the divorce itself — and what it costs in New Jersey if you miss that moment.

See a different stateNew Jersey
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The federal half is the same everywhere

Social Security, the passport, and the order to do them in are identical in all fifty states and are on the main name-change page. This page is the part that is New Jersey-specific.

Restore it in the divorceYesN.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:34-21
After the decree is finalYes motion to modify the decree
Newspaper publicationNot required NEWSPAPER PUBLICATION WAS ABOLISHED. By order of November 17, 2020, effective…
Background checkYes No fingerprints. N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:52-1 requires the complaint to be accompanied by a…
Separate petition feeNot establishedWe could not confirm this from an official fee schedule, so treat it as indicative and call the clerk before you write the check.
CourtSuperior Court, Law Division… N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:52-1 provides only that ‘Any person may institute an action in…

Restoring your name in the divorce

New Jersey restores a former name through the divorce itself, under N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:34-21.

“The court, upon or after granting a divorce from the bonds of matrimony to either spouse or dissolution of a civil union to either partner in a civil union couple, may allow either spouse or partner in a civil union couple to resume any name used by the spouse or partner in a civil union couple before the marriage or civil union, or to assume any surname.” (full text of the section)

How much choice the judge has: discretionary – the court ‘may allow’

Who may ask: either party

Not a now-or-never decision

New Jersey does not require this to be settled before the decree is final.

If the decree is already final

The statute expressly says ‘upon OR AFTER granting a divorce’, so New Jersey does not require the request to have been made before the judgment. The New Jersey Courts self-help page confirms the mechanics: ‘To resume your maiden name as a result of a divorce, you can file a motion in family court as part of a pending or post-judgment divorce case. If your judgment of divorce stipulates that you can resume your maiden name, you do not need to file any other motion.’ Note § 2A:34-21 also allows assuming ANY surname, not just a pre-marriage one.

Authority: N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:34-21

The separate name-change petition

This is the route if the divorce route is closed to you, or if you want a name that is not a former one.

  • Statute: N.J. Stat. Ann. §§ 2A:52-1 to 2A:52-4; N.J. Ct. R. 4:72
  • Court: Superior Court, Law Division (civil) – Chancery Division, Family Part if a minor child’s name is also being changed
  • Residency: N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:52-1 provides only that ‘Any person may institute an action in Superior Court, for authority to assume another name.’ No durational residency is stated in the statute; R. 4:72-3 refers to the county of the plaintiff’s residence for venue purposes.
  • Publication: NEWSPAPER PUBLICATION WAS ABOLISHED. By order of November 17, 2020, effective immediately, the Supreme Court amended R. 4:72-3 and R. 4:72-4 to delete both publication requirements: the pre-hearing notice (‘Notice of application shall then be published in a newspaper of general circulation in the county of plaintiff’s residence once, at least two weeks preceding the date of the hearing’) and the post-judgment publication (‘Within 20 days after entry of judgment, a copy thereof … shall be published in a newspaper of general circulation in the county of plaintiff’s residence’). The Court adopted the change to improve access for economically disadvantaged people, self-represented litigants, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. What remains under R. 4:72-3 is service of the notice of application by certified and regular mail, at least 20 days before the hearing, on the Director of the Division of Criminal Justice (plus service on a non-party parent in a minor’s case).
  • Background check: No fingerprints. N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:52-1 requires the complaint to be accompanied by a sworn affidavit stating the applicant’s name, date of birth, social security number, ‘whether or not the applicant has ever been convicted of a crime, and whether any criminal charges are pending against him and, if such convictions or pending charges exist, shall provide such details in connection therewith sufficient to readily identify the matter referred to.’ The affidavit must also recite that the action ‘is not being instituted for purposes of avoiding or obstructing criminal prosecution or for avoiding creditors or perpetrating a criminal or civil fraud.’ Knowingly giving false information is a crime of the fourth degree. If criminal charges are pending, the applicant must serve the complaint and affidavit on the responsible prosecuting authority. Under § 2A:52-2 the clerk forwards a copy of the judgment to the State Bureau of Identification in the Division of State Police if the person has a conviction or pending charges. Under R. 4:72-4 a certified copy of the judgment must be filed with the appropriate office in the Department of Treasury within 45 days.
  • Hearing: required

Official forms

What catches people out in New Jersey

New Jersey is one of the few states where the divorce court can restore a name AFTER the judgment – § 2A:34-21 says ‘upon or after granting a divorce’. You do not have to start a separate name-change case.
If your judgment of divorce already says you may resume your former name, NJ Courts says you need no further motion at all – the judgment is your proof.
§ 2A:34-21 is broader than most restoration statutes: it lets a spouse resume ANY name used before the marriage OR ‘assume any surname’ – not only a birth name.
The affidavit under § 2A:52-1 requires your Social Security number and full disclosure of convictions and pending charges. Lying on it is a fourth-degree crime.
The Director of the Division of Criminal Justice must be served by certified AND regular mail at least 20 days before the hearing – the step self-represented filers most often miss now that publication is gone.
A certified copy of the judgment must reach the Department of Treasury within 45 days after entry (R. 4:72-4).
Worth knowing

NEW JERSEY REQUIRES no NEWSPAPER PUBLICATION FOR ANY NAME CHANGE, for anyone, since November 17, 2020. A very large amount of online guidance still describes New Jersey’s two-notice publication scheme (once before the hearing and once after judgment); that is obsolete. Because publication was eliminated for everyone, there is no separate domestic-violence exemption and none is needed – which is the practical outcome DV advocates wanted, achieved by abolishing the requirement rather than carving out survivors.

I specifically looked for a survivor-specific sealing or confidentiality provision in N.J.S.A. 2A:52-1 to 2A:52-4 and in the November 2020 rule amendment notice and found none. Whether R. 4:72-1 or 4:72-2 (not reproduced in that notice) contains a sealing mechanism I could not confirm; njcourts.gov’s rules pages return 403 to automated fetching.

I could not verify the Superior Court filing fee for a name-change complaint on a primary New Jersey source – njcourts.gov’s self-help and forms pages are JavaScript-driven and its fee pages were not reachable from this environment – so the fee is null rather than guessed.

The statute text above was read on the New Jersey Legislature’s own statutes database (lis.njleg.state.nj.us). The node-number URLs are the Legislature’s permalinks for §§ 2A:34-21 and 2A:52-1; the section headings appear on those pages as ‘Surname’ and ‘Action for change of name’ respectively.

N.J.S.A. 2A:34-21 permalink for the divorce provision: https://lis.njleg.state.nj.us/nxt/gateway.dll/statutes/1/112/1083

Sources for this page

Sources we could not reach when this page was built, listed so you know what was not checked rather than assuming it was: https://www.njcourts.gov/attorneys/rules-of-court?amp%3Bid=4%3A72&amp%3Btitle=actions-change-name&c=21; https://www.njcourts.gov/self-help/forms/eform/name-change

Found an error? Tell us — it goes on the corrections page with the date and how long it was live.

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Sources last checked30 August 2026
Page published30 August 2026
What this means. This is when the sources on this page were last read against their originals — statutes, court rules, official schedules — taken from the date this page was built from its sources. It is not the date the page was last edited. Adding a link or fixing a typo does not move it; re-reading the statute does. Law changes without notice, so treat anything time-sensitive as needing a fresh check. Where we get something wrong we publish it at thecusp.app/corrections with the date, what changed, and how long the error was live.